


Square Root of Pride

by Everlind



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Attempts at algebra (and failing at), M/M, bra theft and watermelons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-01
Updated: 2013-07-01
Packaged: 2017-12-16 18:41:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,682
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/865330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Everlind/pseuds/Everlind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Love is like an algebra equation. It may look like nonsense, but is always has one and only one solution.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

Irony is a bitch.

Niou likes Maths. He loves Maths. He's really good at Maths. Maths have always made sense to him. So it would figure that all his problems would start with Maths.

To be honest, the root of the problem is probably Yagyuu. But he kinda brought Yagyuu upon himself, an unpredictable variable in the ever tangled formula of his life. Or something like that. Had he known what bugging Yagyuu had meant, he'd have left the dorkwad puttering about with his golf sticks.

But, nooo. Niou always has to push. Like poking a lion suffering from a toothache with a sharp stick.

Only the lion is all metaphorical and on the inside.

Anyway.

Maths.

He's good at that.

Fuck, he's the best out of his whole year. He aced them all in middle school and is still acing them all in high school.

So why do they pick  _Yagyuu_  to tutor her?

Huh?

 

"Lucky bastard," Marui says, as he unwraps a stick of gum and stuffs it into his mouth. "Why do you get to tutor her, huh?"

Yagyuu looks over at him, before using the the tip of his index to nudge his glasses higher up his nose. His lips curve, but they don't smile. He doesn't answer.

Niou rolls his eyes.

"Maybe if you actually weren't a complete failure at Maths, Bunta," Jackal says, "you'd have had a chance."

Blowing a bubble that sends a waft of apple through the changing rooms, Marui considers this. Then he pops it and says, "But why Yagyuu? Again. He always gets to tutor the hot chicks. I mean,  _Niou's_  better at Maths than he is, but they still pick him. It's not fair."

"Suuuure. Because Niou obviously is the better choice and all," Jackal mutters, shaking his head.

Kicking at his ankle, Niou asks, "Yeah? And why wouldn't I be?"

"Because the chances of you showing up, let alone actually  _tutoring_  her, are as likely as Akaya scoring an A on his English," Yanagi answers.

"Eh?" the kid goes somewhere on the other side of the changing room. He bangs his head on the open door of his locker. Yanagi sighs.

"I would," Niou says. "Show up."

Yanagi, Jackal, Marui and Yagyuu all turn to look at him. Simultaneously. All four of them with looks of clear skepticism on their faces, though in varying degrees. Yagyuu's is kind of an arched eyebrow above opaque gleaming glasses.

"I would," Niou lies.

"But would you tutor her?" Yanagi asks. "If you showed up."

"I would be charming and chivalrous in equal measures," Niou responds, as he zips up his pants.

"But not tutor her," Yanagi points out.

"You'd probably take pictures of her cleavage with your mobile phone," Marui snorts.

"I'm too much of a gentleman for that," he answers, tossing back his head and smirking.

There's another pause. Even Yagyuu is frowning now. Then he opens his mouth. "Clearly that is why they call you the Trickster and me the Gentleman, isn't it, Niou-kun?" he says.

Jackal chuckles.

"Clearly, they don't know any better, do they, eh? Yaaaagyuu?" he drawls back.

Yagyuu barely spares him a glance as he slings his bag over his shoulder. "Clearly," he responds dryly. "I have to leave or I will be late for a certain tutoring session."

And with that winning parting-note on the subject, he's off.

Niou scowls after him, long after he's gone through the door.

Marui slings an arm around his shoulder conspiratorially. Pops a bubble. "I would've preferred for it to be you, man. Honest. No hopes for Yagyuu being of any help. And I would so  _die_  for a good shot of Tatsuki-chan's mighty bosom."

Shrugging him off, Niou elbows him and hisses into his ear, "Promise?"

Marui scowls.

***

" _…fuck!_ " he groans under his breath and lets out a heavy sigh of satiation. Short-lived though it might be. At his feet, his come swirls down the drain. As always, post-coital, his stomach shivers. It's weird, but a good orgasm causes the skin on his belly to tremble. And this was a very good orgasm.

 

Marui isn't wrong.

But he isn't right for the correct reasons.

Alright, yes, he totally would take a picture of Kikutake Tatsuki's bosom. Just because. Probably enlarge it, write 'Got Milk?' on it and make a hundred or so photocopies of it, which he would spread throughout the school.

With tits like that, leaving your blouse unbuttoned at the top is asking for it, really.

But he doesn't want to tutor Kikutake with the globular rack of wondrousness because of Kikutake's generous assets.

Really.

He doesn't want  _Yagyuu_  tutoring her and possibly taking notice of said assets, which might lead him to try and figure out what the radius of those semi-spherical attachments would be. Kinda moot, since the whole male population has been in a frenzy about it since she made an re-appearance in high school with a cup-size three times the one she had in middle school and have been attempting to guess the true size and weight of those suckers ever since.

Point being?

Niou doesn't want Yagyuu to notice  _her_.

He wants Yagyuu to notice-

" _A-ni-ki_!" his brother hollers through the door, pounding on it. "It's my turn! Hurry up or I'll tell okaa-san!"

Niou sighs, mouths 'puri' under his breath. He runs his hands through his hair one last time to get the last of the suds out of it. It's fried enough from all the bleaching and it probably won't help to leave in half of the soap bottle to fester at his roots.

He dries off, lets the sodden towel drop on the floor, kicks open the door and walks out naked.

"Eeew! Gross!" his brother yowls, covering both eyes with his hands. "What took you so long?"

"What do you think?" he returns. Wags his eyebrows at the confused look.

"EEEEW!" his brother shrieks, shaking his head in denial as he lacks any more appendages to cover up his brain to protect it from the mental image. "GROSS!"

"Don't slip on anything," he adds, before sauntering into his room.

There's a howl of dismay that might translate to  _oooo-kaaaaaa-saaaaaaaaa-haaaaaa-aaaaan_ , but Niou shuts his door on it halfway through.

Idiot.

With a huff, he flops down on his bed. He frowns and sticks out his tongue at the ceiling. The room is in shadows. His hair falls down around his face with the wax and the gel washed out of it and it tickles at his nose. His sheets smell musty -no surprise there- and somewhere in the distance a train rattles by. His Maths book lies open on page 82.

He's not in the mood for Maths.

Even though he should really just knuckle down and jot down the solutions -it would only take him fifteen minutes- instead of rushing through them and make a messy scrawl as he does them on the bus tomorrow morning. But his mind is elsewhere.

It takes him long enough that the shadows turn to night before he fishes out his mobile phone and types out a quick text:

How was the tutoring session?

Send.

Maybe Yagyuu has already gone to bed, it's past ten and a school day tomorrow. Niou's feet touch the ground and he stands up to walk a tight circle, first clockwise, then counterclockwise. Then he opens up the window. Heavy, thick summer air rolls inside, with just the tiniest hint of chill of the oncoming night in its wake. Curtains billow gently inwards, brushing against his naked skin, before the circulation in his room reverses and spills out, fluttering them outwards. There's sea and pollution in the air, and freshly mown grass.

He wonders if anybody sees him now: a lanky teenager stark, buck naked behind a sheet of gauzy fabric. A pale silhouette, at most.

His phone beeps.

Niou grabs at it so violently he knocks it off his bedside cabinet. It slides under his bed. Amidst dustbunnies, used matches, thumbtacks and moldy socks he tracks it down.

Satisfactory.

That's it.

Niou closes his eyes, lets his head drop to his bed.

It probably means that it went well, just that. But it could also mean that Kikutake Tatsuki let him calculate the actual volume of her breasts or even how those things manage to defy gravity the way they do. But with Yagyuu? It's hard to tell.

He's so screwed.

 

And only figuratively at that.

Dammit.

***

Niou watches Yagyuu watch Kikutake.

It's a Thursday. No practice. Yukimura might act like it, but he's not captain yet. If he had been, they would've had practice every single day. Yukimura will not stand for another loss. Not to Seigaku, not to Hyotei, not to anyone else.

But he's not captain.

So he and Yagyuu are walking home after school.

Kikutake is to talking to friends over by the water fountain. She might talk as politely as Yagyuu does, but her skirt hitches up higher and higher by the second and her uniform shirt strains over her bosom.

Five or so guys pass her. They stare. One of them trips over his own feet and ends up with a face-full of dirt and scraped knees. And a ridiculously obvious stiffy. His friends laugh. Kikutake makes a concerned face, asks if he is alright. Her chest heaves.

Niou rolls his eyes, slouches.

"No tutoring session today?" he mutters, feigning unholy glee as he smirks at the idiot who's scrambling to his feet, erection wilting under the onslaught of ridicule.

"Only on Wednesdays," Yagyuu answers. He lifts up his wrist, checks the time. "I have to hurry. See you tomorrow at practice, Niou-kun."

With that, he walks off. Briskly. Back straight, hair straight, tie straight.

Niou watches him, slouched with hands deep in his pockets, hair gelled into orderly chaos, shirt untucked and tie at half-mast.

"Yagyuu!" he yells after him.

Yagyuu turns half around, looks at him.

"Tutor me!" he shouts.

"What?!" Yagyuu shouts back.

"Tutor  _me_!" Niou repeats.

"Niou-kun," Yagyuu shakes his head. Looks over his shoulder. He yells something back, something Niou doesn't get and then he's a retreating form into the distance.

Later, when Niou rides the bus home, he gets a text:

You're better at maths than me.

***

"Show me your notes!" Niou says.

Yagyuu looks up. Blinks. "Why?"

"Because. Show them to me," he repeats, through clenched teeth.

Yagyuu doesn't roll his eyes. It's not his style. If it had been, they'd have rotated out of his skull by now. But he does hand Niou the notes.

Grabbing them, paper crackling and protesting under his clawed fingers, Niou sits down with them.

They're having lunch together in an empty classroom. Niou makes sure to get sauce from the cafeteria's mystery special all over the notes and he doesn't straighten out the paper.

Yagyuu frowns.

 _Troublesome fellow_ , his expression hides, but doesn't express.

Niou knows anyway. He smirks.

It's algebra. Not the hardest of equations either, at that. But Yagyuu goes on to write the xes between the coefficient and variables in the next step and then by expanding through the FOIL method, nice and easily working open his monomials and polynomials. Sometimes he even makes one separate line just to clear away a minus or plus before parenthesis, chipping at the equations like a bird pecking at a corncob.

 _That chick must be really dumb_ , Niou scoffs inwardly,  _if she can't even get through the obvious._

His eyes scan down, sixteen painstaking steps before reaching the actual conclusion. It's something Niou hardly needs to write out four steps for, maybe less if he had time to think about it.

y = 82.

The conclusion is 82.

"Wrong," he sneers, tossing the papers back into Yagyuu's lap.

Yagyuu picks them up, wipes his palm over them to smooth them out. "How so?"

"The answer is 28," he says.

A small pause. Yagyuu goes over the equation, re-calculates the whole of it. "How can it possibly be 28?" he wants to know.

Niou nudges invisible frames up his nose. "How can it possibly be 82?" he mimics. The upside of having studied Yagyuu's mannerisms down to the last detail: the inflection of his voice, the manner in which the words roll of his tongue, the very curve and flex of his lips… all Yagyuu's.

Anybody else would be disturbed.

Yagyuu isn't just anybody else. He smirks, leers. "Obvious, right?" he says, in Niou's voice.

 _Puri_ , his expression says.

They study the problem together. Step by step, by addition, by subtraction, by multiplication, by division, with exponents and variables scattered throughout, they solve in tandem, until there is nothing left.

"2882?" Niou goes, scratching at his hair.

Yagyuu coughs. "8228." he says.

A shared look.

The rest of lunch they are bend over the algebra equation together, arguing and muttering and offering possible solutions. A school bench isn't very big and their thighs are touching when they shift or their arms might brush. Niou is caught between frustration over the exercise and frustration between his legs. Sometimes he breathes in really deep and feels the skin on their forearms catch, the hairs tickle.

Yagyuu is warm.

Everybody always says how cold he can be, but Niou knows it is not true. Yagyuu always is impossibly warm, as though his blood runs just a few degrees hotter than it should be. He can't be all ice and aloofness if he can put on a wig, contacts, draw on a mole, hit a ball with his left hand and  _be_  him down to the core.

It's not a complete act for Yagyuu, to be Niou. Maybe almost more of a release. Or indulgence.

Then again, being Yagyuu? Biggest damn turn-on, ever. To part his hair just so, to nudge those glasses up his nose -precise, neat- and to nod and say, 'Yes, sensei, or course sensei'. A release, too. Sometimes a rather literal one at that.

There's no reason to be Yagyuu these days, the mindfucking in their game has become a little too subtle for that and the switch only works so many times. What is fun is making people think they've switched, when they haven't, which is a switch upon a switch and the most delightful mind game ever. Still, maybe some day again. A switch over a switch over a switch? Just blending over into each other until the boundaries are one smudge of YagyuuNiouYagyuuNiou _them_.

But he kinda misses it.

Sometimes he puts on the glasses, the ones with plain glass, when he does his homework. He tucks in his shirt and straightens his back. No gel or wax. Neat, precise kanji. Almost Yagyuu but not really.

Sitting here, with Yagyuu next to him and the smell of marker, tip-ex and the leftovers from their lunch in the air, is good enough for now.

Niou forgets about how he lies in bed at night with his own hand around his dick and Yagyuu's name rolling of his tongue and in the mornings, too, or sometimes even in the showers after practice, because he'd been sneaking looks at Yagyuu's ass in those white shorts. Or you know, when he was out those shorts to change.

It's just him and Yagyuu, leaning in over the same problem, blending together just a little.

And then the bell rings and classes start and Yagyuu says:

"Maybe I shouldn't pose Kikutake this one before we've figured it out ourselves."

Niou looks up, then looks away. Shrugs. He scratches at his hair, tousles it and looks disinterestedly out through the window. "Yeah. Whatever."

Yagyuu nods, tells him he'll see him at practice. Leaves.

When he's gone, Niou sighs rubs at his face.

Dammit.

***

It's when Niou finds himself, a week later, at his desk with the glasses on, the impossible algebra exercise before him and his hand down his pants that he realizes he needs to do something about his 'situation'.

Besides grabbing tissues to clean off, of course.

He needs to do something to make Yagyuu… notice him.

That way.

However, easier said than done.

Cause 1) they're both guys and 2) he doesn't want to go and say it. Like that. It's gay enough as it is, with his hand still smelling of come and the fake glasses on his nose. If he goes up to Yagyuu and says ' _I like you. Will you be my boyfriend?_ ' he'll probably die from overload of gayness. And he'd throw himself under a train to be done with it anyway.

Niou Masaharu doesn't confess.

That and he kinda doesn't dare to. Yagyuu will probably lift an eyebrow and say: " _Excuse me, Niou-kun? I think I misheard, but it sounded as though you just made a completely homo-sounding confession to me._ "

Yeah.

Not an option.

But how is he going to make Yagyuu notice him next to Kikutake Tatsuki's ginormous bosom and magically fluttering-up-in-the-nonexistent-wind skirt?

Besides, Yagyuu has  _seen_  him naked.

What more can he do?

Solve this problem, perhaps.

But his latest attempt just got him 282, right after he got 828 and 822 before that. There's probably something fundamentally wrong with the whole equation which makes it unsolvable, but he hasn't been able to pin it down yet.

Making an angry, fat X over his latest result, Niou scowls and throws his pencil down.

 

If all else fails he could always put on a skirt himself. Stuff two watermelons down the front of his shirt.

Niou laughs wryly, shaking his head at himself.

Yeah right.

***

Everything seems hell-bent on failing.

Then again Yagyuu is used to him hanging all over him and drawling 'Yaaaaaagyuuuu' in his ear when he wants something (Yagyuu, specifically, in this case), he's used to Niou being naked in the change rooms and doesn't seem to care if he walks around naked, either. He's used to scribbled nonsense in the margin in his notes and Niou stealing the prawns out of his bento. He's used to having to call on Niou as a member of the disciplinary committee.

Besides confessing (no way) and kissing Yagyuu (no fucking way), Niou doesn't know how to express himself. Or how to show it.

It messes with his tennis. It messes with his  _head_.

Yagyuu is right there, on the other side of the net. A straight-backed, almost polite presence. "Let's have a good game, Niou-kun," he says.

Throwing up his racket, watching spin twice before returning on the down-arc, he catches it. Right-handed.

Yagyuu lifts a brow. Niou clucks his tongue, winks.

Slowly and deliberately, Yagyuu switches hands. Nods.

"Want to play, do you?" Niou calls out to him as he bounces the ball. "I can do that."

It's his serve. He makes it sharp and fast, angles it into a corner, nothing Yagyuu can't handle, but it's nice to see him run for it. You know. See his butt clench and shift when he moves. See him plant his foot, his left arm swing and move with confident grace as he returns the serve.

With a little grunt Niou hits it back, precise, calculated, fast. His shoulders are straight, as is his back.

Yagyuu makes it a lazy lob, as slouched and easy as he is.

Up against the blue the ball travels, a high arc that blots out the sun, impostor-like, before coming down.

Niou steps back, calm and cool. Returns it. "That all you got, Yaaaaagyuuuu?" he calls.

Yagyuu hitches up an eyebrow. And hits the laser beam.

Viciously precise. Hypnotic, if it hadn't been as beautifully fast as it is. Surprise, surprise: because they're being each other and the laser should be a trick up  _his_  sleeve now, but Yagyuu doesn't seem to want to play nice.

One thing can be said for having had Yukimura as a captain. He might be surprised, but his legs and body move despite that, feet making a one-two-three-four, like flying, before his right hand moves to cradle the ball on the face of his racket. The impact shivers up his arm, bends the strings, and then he's slugging it back as equally fast and vicious. It snaps into the clay precisely against the baseline, before slamming into the chain-link fence with a hideous clatter.

15-0

"Oi, Yagyuu!" he calls back. "If ya wanna play dirty, you should play seriously."

They rally furiously over the next point, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, the yellow blurring, Niou's eyes narrowing and Yagyuu's lips whitening, waiting to see who will break the pattern, or will fumble a return. Niou messes around a little, sending the ball back lower and lower and lower until they're brushing the net as the ball passes over it, making it flutter like a leaf in the wind. Then Yagyuu starts to angle it up and up and up and up, making them both back up a step on each return to get it, until Niou finds himself pinned against the baseline.

"Puri."

On the other hand, that's where Yagyuu is, too.

Where they tested the limits vertically, they now do horizontally.

Niou makes sharp slices, having send the first one over ever so slightly diagonally. Yagyuu didn't have to move, just stretch out his left hand a little further to return it. Also angled, but in the opposite direction. They repeat this, once, twice, the motion thickening like an out of control pendulum, until first Yagyuu and then Niou have to step sideways to get it.

Like before they rally, back and forth at top-speed, until they hit the limit of the court and have to run the width of it to reach their returns.

The continued repetition makes the muscles burn in his shoulders, his calves ache.

It's glorious.

Until Yagyuu abruptly decides he's had enough and hits another laser beam.

Niou is at the other side, alert enough to react, but not possibly fast enough to run down a shot of such speed.

15-15

"Better?" Yagyuu asks, nudging his glasses into place.

"Not shabby." Niou acknowledges, grinning.

They play with patterns until first Niou and then Yagyuu takes a game with it. Even after this, Yagyuu is still playing as a southpaw and Niou continues to hit right handed, though their playing styles have started to slip into one big amalgamation of being each other. Laser beams are hit by both sides while tricks, traps are set up and sprung left and right.

At one point Sanada stops to watch their game and after a few minutes of it he's muttering 'tarundoru' and 'playing around' under his breath, but he can't do jack shit, Niou knows, because nobody's died and made him fuku-buchou yet. Though that is undoubtedly Yukimura's master plan.

Sanada doesn't get it, Niou thinks and bares his teeth through a smash. They  _are_.

Their way.

At 5-4 for him, Niou decides to mirror Yagyuu, which is in and upon himself not as easy as it sounds, though he can switch back to his left hand to make the mirror-image illusion work. Not just Yagyuu's volleys and lobs and slices does he copy, but his expression and the pace of his breathing, the little grunts he makes.

Yagyuu frowns when he sees what Niou is doing, so Niou frowns as disapprovingly and annoyed right back.

It's not a little delightful to know that Yagyuu is facing himself over the net now, even though he of all people knows exactly  _who_  and what he is facing.

On top of that, it freezes the game. Yagyuu would have to break through the illusion or lose a point deliberately to make Niou lose one. But the sun is sinking orange and heavy, reflecting off the windows of the school, covering everything in a honey-hued layer and most matches have ended some time ago, while they are still stuck at 5-4. The cicadas chirp, endless, and they return each other's balls, endless.

Despite the glee at the situation, the delight to see Yagyuu's frustration but also his secret enjoyment of the challenge, Niou is starting to become uncomfortable. Having a solid hard-on is not exactly a welcome addition.

Usually, when he immerses himself into being Yagyuu as he is now, not to mention for as long as he's been keeping it up, he usually ends with his hand down his boxers. It's his kind of being close to Yagyuu, in a way, as bodily realistic as he can manage though there's only one person, which never truly  _is_ Yagyuu. Still, anything will do. Anything to feel a little closer to Yagyuu.

But now Yagyuu is across the net - not to mention sweaty and flushed- and it adds a bad factor to the already fucked up situation.

Yagyuu's luck, because he manages to take a point when he hits a laser beam, but not before announcing it by a loud and clear: "Adieu."

Niou shudders and feels numb desire pound between his legs and fumbles with getting the word past his lips. The illusion cracks along with his voice on the unfamiliar vowels.

15-0 Yagyuu.

"Distracted, Niou-kun?" Yagyuu asks, as he rolls his shoulders.

Niou's eyes widen, just a fraction, but hopefully not enough for Yagyuu to see from where he's standing. Does he suspect…? No.

But Yagyuu goes on. "Shall we play as you now?"

And damn, why does that sound so erotic and filthy when Yagyuu says it like that? If only there was some way to adjust himself so it wouldn't hurt being trapped in his shorts like that. And thank God his shirt was bought for him to grow into, with currently still room to spare, so it covers the tent.

Damn you, Yagyuu.

Already Yagyuu is becoming him. The slouch, the tilt of his head, the vague insolence on his face. He stands with his feet planted, racket over his shoulder. Niou sees himself there, how sloppy he looks, but then Yagyuu launches into a furious battle for the next point and Niou sees him glide with a certain smooth elegance through the game.

Like he does, Niou supposes.

They volley and wrangle, their shorts sharp and tricksy, mirrored still and Niou wonders if Yagyuu can beat Niou by being Niou.

That would be fucked up.

He smirks and Yagyuu smirks back. They both laugh and change a smash into a drop shot, arms moving at sudden, unexpected angles. Yagyuu laughs, or Niou does, they're both him anyway, because this is so much fun, so good and right and something that is  _theirs_.

"Yagyuu-san!"

Niou fumbles his return.

30-0 Yagyuu.

The ball rolls towards the net and Niou feels his erection wilt at the anticlimactic sensation of that point, not to mention when he realizes that the game -the  _true_ , real game- is over. A game, behind the game in their game, one that Yagyuu didn't know about. A tennis game not about tennis.

"Tatsuki-chan," Yagyuu responds. He seems slightly baffled when he realizes he's completely forgotten about her.

There's not a shred of arousal left in Niou's shorts. He sighs, jaw clenching.

_Stupid bitch._

It would've worked. It was working. Yagyuu was there, was him even, and  _playing_  with  _him_ , instead of tutoring Kikutake after Wednesday's practice.

"Yagyuu-san?" she asks breathily, eyes doe-like and blinking. "I was waiting for you, but… but you didn't show up."

"Please, excuse me." Yagyuu says, walking off the court briskly to grab his bag. "I shall be there immediately. My apologies."

"Alright," she murmurs and nods. With a toss she sends the demure braid over her shoulder, but not without leveling a  _look_  at Niou. Niou smiles, waggles his fingers. She huffs. With a whirl of her skirt she flounces off, back towards the building.

"Niou-kun!" Yagyuu he says in a low voice, as he zips his racket up, "why didn't you say anything?"

Niou makes a show of pulling the elastic out of his rat-tail. The longer hair comes loose and then proceeds with sticking into the sweat on his neck. "I forgot," he drawls. He scratches his stomach, shrugs. "You did, too."

Yagyuu tsks, but doesn't comment any further. He leaves, too.

Alone, Niou stand on the court, waiting for Yagyuu to storm back out of the clubhouse so he can hurry after Kikutake and her heaving chest. With Yagyuu's shadow retreating in the distance, Niou stands there even longer until the sweat on his body dries. Detached from his skin, his hair floats around his face. Niou stands on his side of the court, his game failed and unfinished and only leaves when the captain makes him.

After his shower, he goes home.

Alone.


	2. Chapter 2

Niou doesn't know when it happened. Or what made it start. Can't even specify what it is about Yagyuu he likes. All he knows that it is not because Yagyuu is a boy.

It's because Yagyuu is Yagyuu.

Who just happens to be a boy.

But that's the tricky part. Yagyuu is Yagyuu who is also a boy. One plus one equals, two. Or three, depending on how you judge the factors.

It began with tennis. If Niou hadn't played tennis, they wouldn't have been here, he thinks. But there was tennis and then Niou made it so there was also Yagyuu. It was just tennis and Yagyuu for a long time. Then there was the switch. Now there's them and this.

Somewhere between 'just tennis and Yagyuu' and 'the switch' the dreams began. That was the only way he could tell that his…  _fascination_  with Yagyuu strayed across a delicate line into something else. Niou admits it: he all but stalked Yagyuu for a while. Secretly. He dug up everything he could find about Yagyuu on the internet and came across a few profiles of him here and there with hobbies of him, interests and friends. Photos of him. He'd researched Yagyuu. Like how that stretch from Seigaku does for his data tennis, writing things down.

_Yagyuu likes the color green._

Then later he'd cross it out and add  _moss green._

Niou didn't know what the slow burn meant, then. The hunger to know more than Yagyuu confided to him.

Yagyuu was his first friend.

The first one who as different as he was, though on a whole other level.

In the beginning the dreams were just about tennis. Not even always with Yagyuu in them. Just tennis balls and rackets and tennis courts and nets and chalk lines, though in dreams sometimes one or the other element would be warped or would disappear and Niou'd find himself playing tennis in the cafeteria with a baseball bat instead of a racket. But he'd be wearing his uniform and there was a tennis ball and the rules were unchanged. Sometimes it were dreams where he was just hanging around the bike shed, but he'd be holding his racket for some reason. After a while he had a tennis ball that he must return to Yagyuu, only Yagyuu was home but all the doors were locked and Niou couldn't give it to him.

He had that dream for months. Always the same: he'd reach into his left pocket and he'd touch the knotty fuzz of a well-used tennis ball. He'd lift it up to look at it and realize with a cold rush that it was a tennis ball he  _needed_  to give to Yagyuu, because it was  _his_ , always had been, even though it had always lived inside the pocket of Niou's shorts. But it belonged to Yagyuu. He'd run, endlessly, through streets that stretched on and on as soon as he came to the end of them. Then, suddenly, Yagyuu's house. Everything locked. No answer. But there was a light burning behind a window and Niou knew it was Yagyuu, that dark silhouette. He'd yell and scream until his voice was gone, but Yagyuu couldn't hear him.

Then he'd wake up.

And then suddenly a dream where Yagyuu opened the door. He'd opened the door when Niou knocked and Niou, breathless and exhausted, offered him the tennis ball. Yagyuu took it, smiling, and invited him inside. And suddenly his hand was down Niou's shorts, touching.

Then he'd woken up, belly shivering, and a sticky patch in his boxers.

After that dream he'd thrown away all notes he'd had on Yagyuu, deleted all tabs in his bookmarks. Systematically erasing all traces of the not so innocent impact Yagyuu had on him.

Strangely enough, after that first vivid dream of Yagyuu's hand on Niou's cock, the next ones were all rather vague and tame.

Kissing, if he's lucky.

Usually it is endless conversations with Yagyuu talking. Sometimes Yagyuu might be shirtless as he's explaining things to Niou. Mostly he's dressed in his tennis uniform or sometimes in school attire, and occasionally wearing his nerdy golf get-up.

Always Niou wakes up with the strength of his orgasm trembling through his abdomen and the smell of his come in the air.

Just like that, it happened.

Niou didn't think it was love at first, but after a while he had to admit that the flock of fluttering insects in his belly and the thick heat in his throat weren't normal. Everything Yagyuu did or said, was upon reception by his senses torn apart and examined, calculated and contemplated, then reassembled and filed away.

Everything was second guessed.

Even the most stupidest, most unintentional of gestures.

***

Yagyuu continues to tutor Kikutake.

The algebra equation remains unsolvable.

For five weeks Niou has been trying to find a solution to these problems. His efforts are getting weaker, feebler. Yagyuu doesn't seem to notice his attempts to push against the boundaries of their friendship for  _more_  and Niou knows that besides telling him, kissing him, or outright groping him, he's out of options.

To add insult to injury: the mathematical problem continues to stump both him and Yagyuu.

"I could show it to my sensei, ask her to see what we are doing wrong," Yagyuu suggests.

"No," Niou says. He wants to figure the damn thing out himself.

"Obviously there is something wrong with the initial problem itself," Yagyuu points out. "How else can all our solutions be made up of various combinations of two and eight? It is completely illogical."

That's true, at least. And Maths -not to mention algebra- is the one thing Niou has always trusted to  _be_  logical and now this. Small mercy being that Yagyuu is experiencing the same hang-up over solving it as he is.

"Then I wanna find what's wrong with it, alright?"

"Alright," Yagyuu says. And after a moment, he adds, "Niou-kun…"

Niou freezes. Yagyuu is touching him. Out of his own accord, he almost never touches anyone. But especially not Niou, it seems. It's  _him_  who makes it a point to see Yagyuu bristle when he drapes himself over his shoulders, it's  _him_  who pokes Yagyuu in the ribs when he wants his attention, it's  _him_  who pats Yagyuu's cheek when he wants to see him make that extra-special frown of ultimate annoyance he reserves especially for Niou.

Niou.

But now Yagyuu is touching his free-hand, his right, as the left is curled around his pencil. Just fingers tips making contact with the back of his hand. The touch burns through his skin into the center of his palm. He starts to sweat.

"Is everything alright?" Yagyuu asks.

He hears himself swallow, like a wad of dry chalk going down, painful and loud. The finger bones in his hand stand out skeleton-like. Yagyuu's fingers linger over them.

"I'm fine," he says. "Worried about me? Yaaaagyuuuuu?"

There's a silence that echoes louder than Niou's heartbeat. His heart is slamming up against his ribs, choking him as it pumps blood in feverish panic.

"You've been acting strange lately." Yagyuu says. Then he allows a tight little smile. "Stranger than usual."

Niou coughs out a strangled chuckle. "If I always act strange, then maybe this is me acting normal," he answers. He raises a brow

Fingers, absentminded, tickle towards his thumb. Yagyuu's touch is so warm. Niou swallows again, feels moisture collect in the palm of his hand.

"I think that would be highly unlikely," Yagyuu says, still having that little quip to his lips, almost grudgingly showing it. It looks… naughty on him.

He trembles and looks away. Takes his hand back. "I've gotta go to my next class," he mumbles, gathering his notes and dumping the wad of paper and pencils in his bag. "I-…"

"Niou-kun," Yagyuu speaks to the back of his neck.

His hands stop. His right burns, as though on fire. His left aches from having been cramped around the pencil. His cock throbs and hurts and is -again! stupid, dumb thing- trapped at an awkward angle in his pants.

"You can tell me," Yagyuu says. His voice is very quiet.

Not looking over his shoulder, Niou laughs, drolly. "Tell you what? Yagyuu? Hm? Everything is fine." He hoists up his rucksack, bumping it not so accidentally into Yagyuu's chest, who huffs. By the time he turns to face him, he is composed. He leers. "Don't worry so much, Mr. Gentleman," he says and pats Yagyuu's cheek.

Yagyuu frowns.

Niou flees.

***

He might've told Yagyuu he needs to go to class, but that's not where he runs off to. Instead he winds up on the roof, intent to get some hardcore brooding done in peace.

But he's not alone on the roof.

Kikutake is there with some of her friends, smoking.

 _Well, well_ , Niou thinks. Smirking and leaning against the banister, he observes them without hiding it.

Tempting, tempting. But no, he's not jogging back down the stairs to tell Yagyuu -head of the disciplinary committee- or get the ball running by telling some other sure-fire gossip.

Niou realizes that Kikutake is only part of the problem. He knew it since ten minutes ago when Yagyuu touched his hand and Niou thought he was going to die. Just getting rid of her is not going to change anything. Sure, he won't stew in his own jealousy anymore and sure, if Yagyuu decides he can no longer bear the mystery of not knowing how large her tits truly are, then he's screwed. Again figuratively.

No confessing.

No kissing.

No groping Yagyuu between the legs.

He doesn't care if that makes him a pussy, but he just can't. Yagyuu is not just  _that_ , he's his buddy, too, and he wants to keep it that way. If he can. How to test the waters? How to do it without giving himself away and yet without being too subtle? How?

Kikutake spots him and jumps in surprise. "Hurry!" she whispers and chucks the cigarette to the ground, killing the glowing embers with a practiced twist of her heel. Her friends fumble and do the same.

Niou lounges agains the banister, leaning back until his shoulders and head are hanging into space, hair fluttering. His rat-tail is tossed over his shoulder, his half-loose tie flaps. He just quirks his lips and continues to stare unabashedly.

The girls shift and cast him furtive glances. One of them is a girl from his class, Miyami. She's red in the face and guilty looking. She's kinda nice, Niou knows, normal in as far as a girl can be.

In the end, after squirming under his look and whispering to each other, the girls flee, but Kikutake pauses on her way out.

"Please, Niou-san," she pleads. "Don't tell Yagyuu-san."

Niou lifts an eyebrow, smirks.

Kikutake flushes and looks away from his face, uncomfortable. Her shirt is pristine white and is opened just enough to be innocent, but also just enough that anyone taller than her see her the line of her breasts pressed together, half concealed by her tie. Her sleeves are rolled up to her elbows, showing perfect, slender forearms. The black severe cut of her skirt makes her legs look endless, and her knee-socks add just that little touch to toss the whole look into innocence again.

Her chest heaves and her lips pout. She's wearing lipgloss.

Niou feels acid well up and starts to smile wider, meaner.

"Please, Niou-kun," Miyami asks, bowing.

With an eye roll and a flap of his hand the girls skitter away, relieved, but not before Miyami bows at the door a last time.

 _Stupid broads_ , he thinks.

He rubs his mole and thinks. Kikutake Tatsuki's uniform hovers before his mind's eye, the way every single aspect of her body in it was displayed to its best advantage. Looking down, Niou sees lanky legs in black pants, dusty at the knee. Shirt untucked and a bit rumpled, tie half-undone. His blazer is wadded away into his bag.

He rubs his mole some more and thinks about that and watermelons. His mouth twitches, frowns and then twitches again.

 

_Either this is the most brilliant plan I've ever come up with, or the stupidest._

After another moment he disappears back down the stairwell, but still not to go to class. Lightly, easily, he shifts through the hallways, unseen, unnoticed. He heads towards the gym.

If he recalls correctly 2-F is having a double period there right now.

Niou looks over his shoulder - _coast clear_ \- and opens the door to the girl's changing rooms.

***

Tuesday finds Niou at the local 7-Eleven with two watermelons in his hands.

Apparently, Tuesday also finds Marui at the local 7-Eleven with what must be over five family-packs of Aloe Yoghurt Kit-Kats in his arms and three boxes White Chocolate Pistachio Pocky tucked into the waistband of his shorts as he hauls his load to the counter. Maybe it's a snack before dinner.

Niou sneaks up behind him and pokes the soft squish of Marui's belly with a bony finger. "Perhaps a salad instead?" he suggests when Marui jumps and drops half of the candy. He doesn't help pick up.

"You asshole," Marui hisses, grabbing up crinkly packages of Kit-Kats left and right.

Niou smirks, slouches.

Marui waits up for him while the clerk bags his two melons and Niou dishes over his yen.

There, he's got all he needs.

"What do you need two melons for?" Marui asks, already ripping open the first Kit-Kat and stuffing it into his mouth.

Niou considers him for a moment, then rolls his eyes. "I'm gonna stuff them down my shirt, that's why," he says. He doesn't think he's ever answered a question so straight-up and truthfully.

"Whatever," Marui says, but he looks a bit sheepish. They part ways at the street corner. "Enjoy your watermelons!" Marui calls over his shoulder.

Niou grins.

 _If only you knew, Bunta_ , he thinks,  _if only you knew_.

***

"Definitely the worst idea I've ever come up with," Niou whispers under his breath.

Step one: put on the bra, is already proving much, much more complicated than it ought to be. This dawns on him  _after_  realizing his sister's cup-size was waaaay too small to fit two watermelons and he had to venture into even more fucked-up waters and 'borrow' one of his mother's. That was a mind trip that he never cares to repeat, especially when he found out what kind of  _other_  stuff his mom kept in in her drawer  _besides_  underwear.

_Gross, okaa-san!_

He shudders.

Never again, even under the threat of death. Once is enough.  _See what I am willing to go through for you, stupid moron?_

He picked a black, lacy looking thing. To match his black fitting boxer shorts, of course.

Color-coordination is key, or so his sister always says when she comes whining that her 'sets' aren't complete and how can she go out today wearing green panties and a purple bra?

_Gross, oneesan!_

Anyway.

How does this thing even work? Obviously his arms goes through the straps. The cups sag empty against his chest, as there is nothing to cup. Niou is lanky and on the skinny side, with the faintest delineation of muscles on his chest from tennis. It looks ridiculous. He feels ridiculous, especially when he tries to put his arms behind him to hook up the thing. He scrabbles around for each end, first reaching over his shoulders and then alongside his ribs. Finally finds them and spends at least ten minutes trying to hook it up. If he gets one hook, he misses the other two, if he gets the other two, he misses one. He breaks out in a cold sweat.

"Dammit," he lets the bands spring free and rolls his shoulders until the bra is hanging off his forearms.

He needs to be at school in less than an hour! "Dammit," he curses again.

Really now. If women can do it. If someone with as fickle a brain as his  _sister_  can do it, then he, Niou Masaharu, the Trickster and one of the top ten students in his year, should be able to do this with his eyes closed.

He contemplates the thing, two huge black half-circles with frilly lace and a bunch of straps, before he gets an idea. Inside out and backwards he does it up, hooking it up over his pale stomach with the rest flapping against his back, before turning it and sticking his arms through, flipping it up.

"How's that for Pure Genius?" he mumbles under his breath.

The watermelons don't quite fit. They sit askew, one pointing up and the other to the side and plop out to the ground when he leans over to grab the skirt.

The biggest one is a little cracked and leaks juice.

"Puri," Niou sighs, sucking the juice from the fruit before putting it aside.

Maybe he should put on all the rest, first.

The skirt isn't very difficult, but it is apparent that it will not hug his hips and legs in the same flattering way it'll do for a girl. It kinda dangles around his hipbones, which jut up sharply and lift the fabric almost clear off his skin. There's room to fill at his thighs which don't have the flare from slinking down out of curvy hips. His legs look twice as stick-like as they otherwise do.

Despite that, despite knowing that he'll look ridiculous instead of hot and sexy, Niou puts on the socks, tugs them up over his knee. What else can he do?

For each day since last Wednesday, a full week now, he's ended up with the stupid fake glasses on, hand around his cock and straining, with the damn algebra problem under his nose.

Since Yagyuu touched him, he can't  _look_  at him anymore. It hurts to look at him and it hurts even worse  _not_  to look at him.

He doesn't know what else to do.

So he shrugs into the shirt, tapered at the waist for girls, wringing where Niou doesn't have much waist, but otherwise fitting. He leaves the top buttons undone and tries again with the watermelons. With pushing and wriggling and shoving they go in and with some positioning it looks like he's got a massive rack.

 _Take that Kikutake,_  he thinks, smug, as he buttons the shirt up all the way. He's not a slut, unlike someone.

The tie is easy. Over-under-up-around-and-up-again, before sticking it through. It lies draped across his massive watermelon-chest. He breathes in deep, watches everything heave, the buttons strain. Those things are  _heavy_. The straps dig into Niou's shoulders, pinch his skin.

He stands before the cracked mirror he found a few days ago, dumped in an alley filled with mewling cats. It distorts his image somewhat, as though he's been sliced into two but is not yet falling apart. It was kinda cool, so he lugged it home, snuck it in at night.

Niou looks at himself and stares. Well, he kinda does look like a girl. He's at that age where he's caught between being a man and a kid, at sixteen. His face is an amalgam of sharp cheekbones and pointy jaw, but still edged in enough youth that when he pulls the elastic out, his hair softens most of the masculinity. Androgynous, almost.

Turning his head, left, right, Niou looks at himself, his brown eyes, the bow of his mouth. He sticks out his tongue and bats his lashes. Then he picks up his sister's mascara and twists it open. It's black and pasty and hurts when he pokes himself in the eye with the brush. After cleaning away the smudges, he looks again. His eyes seem huge and wrong and girly.

"Whatever works," he mutters.

The mascara isn't the only thing he swiped, but upon closer inspection Niou doesn't really know what to do with all the powders and liquids, skin-toned or fluorescent blue and green and red and deep, deep smokey black. He leaves the lipstick, which is red and suited for a harlot, maybe, and chooses a muted sort of gloss instead.

It feels… weird. His mouth shimmers and catches the light, but no air can reach it. Like his lips are no longer a part of him. But hey, no girls have ever died from these things (he thinks), so why not bear it. Besides, it smells like strawberries.

He puts on the blazer. With that, also silhouetted for girls, and the watermelons in his shirt he looks like has the body of a girl. Sorta. Last he shoves his feet into a pair of his sister's black shoes, with a slight, yet low heel.

With them on he wobbles a bit, but not so bad that he can't make it to the school. He tugs at his left sock, flattens his skirt.

So. This is it.

Niou looks down to check himself out, but finds he can't actually look past the watermelons.

He swallows.

This is a bad idea.

He sighs and climbs through his bedroom window.

***

Much later than he had calculated, Niou drags his sorry carcass onto the campus grounds. His feet  _ache_. Blistered raw, his heels, at the very least. Girls are insane. He knows for a fact that his sister owns heels five times as high. Madness.

His neck and shoulders ache. The melons are heavy, cutting the straps into his flesh and his nipples are sore from having the fruit pressing into them. He smells like a fruitcake, melons, strawberries, madness and a  _thing_  for another boy like a cherry on top.

Not to mention that one of his white socks is dirty and torn from crawling on the roof. And that he unconsciously has licked most of the gloss from his lips. It tasted like strawberries, too.

His watch tells him that he has another ten minutes. Too close for comfort. He can only hope that Yagyuu is not packing up earlier for some reason.

Niou sneaks towards the building, not half as skillful as he usually manages to be, with his feet hurting and his shoulders screaming in protest. He pauses by the water fountain, intending to get a drink and compose himself. Half-tripping he hobbles towards it, grabs for the edge of the basin in relief and leans forwards to get his breath back.

And then it goes wrong. Leaning with his head down causes one of the watermelons to go ' _plop!_ ', out of his bra but still caught under his shirt and Niou grabs for it, standing up. The melon rolls down his belly, evades his arm and bursts free from under the hem of his shirt…

…and falls to the concrete with a resounding splat.

Pieces of red flesh and black pits dot the toes of his shoes.

It's just him and the cicadas and crickets. A crow circles above him, mocking. Niou stares at the watermelon that was his right breast ten seconds ago.

Puri doesn't even cut it.

Instead he bashes his fist into the basin, teeth bared, once, twice, thrice, before the pain becomes unbearable. The knuckles on his left hand ooze blood.

Why can't this go  _right_? Why can't this be easy?

He looks ridiculous, but this was his only hope. The only thing he might be able to laugh off as a joke, when Yagyuu balks. Blame their dressing up hobby, the switch, anything. Just a silly joke. A joke, but he put on a damn girl's uniform for him. For Yagyuu.

Niou leaves the broken fruit where it is, fishes the other out of his left cup. He looks at the watermelon and sighs. Better turn around. Come up with a new plan.

 _There isn't a new plan_ , Niou tells himself. He hangs his head.

Just as he's about to turn around and hobble all the way back, breastless, Kikutake comes out of the building. Niou  _freezes_  for a split-second, before pretending to wash his face at the fountain.

She doesn't pay him any notice. Down the path she goes, skirt swishing in that enticing way that his doesn't manage.

Yagyuu doesn't show.

Niou inhales.

And enters the building.

***

His hands shake as he walks down the hallway. His shoes go click-clack-click-clack.

The inhale and exhale shudders up an down his windpipe.

 _This is the stupidest idea I've ever had_ , Niou tells himself again,  _and I'm a fucking idiot for actually doing it._

But Kikutaki is gone and Yagyuu is still inside and he's wearing the damn uniform and he's come this far. Besides, what else is he going to do, even if he still had both his watermelons?

Yagyuu is shuffling papers in a classroom on the second floor. The sun is sinking and the whole room is drowned in a wash of orange light. Yagyuu seems to glow.

Niou peeks around the corner, quick and fast, before pulling back into the hallway. With unsteady hands he ruffles his hair, hoping that it looks sexily mussed instead of messed up and then he smoothes down his blazer and skirt. Licking at his thumb he tries to buff some of the dirt out of his sock, but the grubby spot only lightens a bit. His shoes are sticky from the melon's innards, but he has nothing to wipe them off with.

As last, he reaches into a pocket of his blazer and pulls out a crumpled, folded piece of notebook paper.

His whole arm trembles as he knocks on the sliding door. It wobbles upon impact.

Yagyuu startles, not having expected anybody, and whirls around.

And gapes.

His mouth actually drops open.

Niou steps inside and plucks at the hem of his skirt. "Yagyuu-san?" he asks breathily. He doesn't even have to fake that, he feels like he's about to hork up a lung from sheer nerves anyway. "Would you tutor me, please?" He holds out the paper with his left hand and bows, keeping firm hold of his remaining watermelon in the curl of his right arm.

Yagyuu seems speechless.

At least, Niou hopes he is. That or he's experiencing a mental failure.

Yagyuu's left eye twitches.

Niou clears his throat. Manages to repeat, "Please, Yagyuu-san. Tutor me?"

Yagyuu's right eye twitches.

Niou swallows and walks into the classroom.

After some deliberation he puts his watermelon aside - _goodbye, left breast_ \- and steps close enough to shove his paper at Yagyuu.

Still gaping, as though his eyes are burned blind with shock, Yagyuu accepts it.

Niou pretends to coyly twirl his finger around a lock of hair, but he ends up knotting it and having to jerk his hand loose. Bleach-fried hairs drift to the ground.

"Niou-kun," Yagyuu manages at long last. For all that he's been standing there with a dangling jaw, his voice is admirably smooth. The sunset bounces opaque off his glasses, eyes hidden. "Why are you dressed like that?"

_Oh, Yagyuu._

He closes his eyes. "I'd like you to tutor me," he says again, chucking his chin at the paper.

Finally Yagyuu manages to drag his eyes towards what he's holding. "It's… but," he lifts it, frowning. "You know I don't know how to solve this, either."

Niou feels a curl of anger in his stomach or maybe it is a backwash of desperation. How can someone so smart be so damn dumb? "I want you…" he says through gritted teeth, "to tutor  _me_."

"Niou-kun, I-"

"Dammit, Yagyuu!" Niou snarls, smashing his fist into a desk. "Don't you get it?"

Yagyuu flinches as his hand smacks into the wood but looks at him, really  _looks_  at him, eyes going to his tangled hair, to Niou's mascara coated lashes, to his mouth and then down, to his watermelon stained shirt, his ill-fitting skirt. His eyes linger on the hole in his sock and end on the slush of fruit sticking to his shoes. As last they flick to the watermelon he put aside on a desk.

Then he begins laughing. Loudly. Head back and mouth open, deep-chested. Something he didn't even know Yagyuu was capable of. It ricochets off the walls of the empty classroom and even escapes into the hallway, echoing down it and into the stairwell.

It's like a punch in the ribs. Niou reels, backing into a desk and leaning against it for support. The rough, student-molested wood cuts into the skin of his legs, through the skirt.

"This is your worst trick ever!" Yagyuu wheezes, shaking his head and smiling. "What were you thinking?"

All the waiting and trying and longing and worrying, cause that what's what it was, worrying, the whole mess of it and now Yagyuu is laughing at him? Something snaps inside of him, something deep inside his chest, on the left side. He screams, at the top of his lungs: " _IT'S NOT A TRICK_!"

Yagyuu stops laughing.

"It's not a trick, you fucking idiot," Niou hisses, voice low and rough and exhausted. Shoulders heaving with a suppressed sigh, he lets his chin drop to his chest, teeth bared as he tries to face off the pain of rejection.

Enough. He's tired of this. He wants Yagyuu to flip out and push him away, maybe even hit him and call him a freak, so he can go home and lick his wounds. Maybe burn the uniform and hide the bra under his brother's pillow, for one last laugh. Forget it all happened and forget about stupid, dumb Yagyuu, who can smile indulgently at girls, but only has derisive laughter for Niou.

He looks at the tips of his shoes. The red splatters and pits are all the way up to his ankles. His hair, bothersome and long loose, hangs on his shoulders. After his outburst, he's drained. He can hear Yagyuu move, his shoes clack, but he doesn't want to lift his head to look what's he's doing. Probably packing up, hurrying away from the freakazoid in a girl's uniform. Yagyuu laughed at how he looked, while he just wanted him to notice Niou. Like that.

"Niou-kun," Yagyuu says, on an exhale.

He sounds suspiciously close. Niou looks up through his bangs, finds himself staring at Yagyuu's white school shirt, close enough to lean his forehead on, if he dared. His eyes trip and catch there, unable to move up the last centimeters. He swallows something tight in his throat.

Yagyuu does it for him, pinching his chin between thumb and index, lifting his head until he can't look anywhere else but at Yagyuu. Shadowed by his own body, back to the windows, Yagyuu's glasses don't gleam. Niou looks straight into his dark eyes and stays like that, like an imbecile, when Yagyuu kisses him.

His lips are soft and hot and a bit wet and gone too soon.

Niou rocks back into the desk when Yagyuu lets go of his chin. It screeches on the tiled floor. He knows his mouth is open, jaw dangling, his eyes wide and wild, but he can only stare at Yagyuu, who smiles.

And who drops his hands down to Niou's legs instead, tennis rough hands on the vulnerable soft skin right where his skirt grazes it above his knee. Niou can only curl his hands around the edges of the desk and hope his knees will keep him up while Yagyuu rubs him there, making the skirt scrunch up and flatten down, scrunch up and flatten down.

"Excuse me," Yagyuu mutters, squeezing his leg. "But you have to admit that you look a little silly."

Niou blinks.

Yagyuu smiles a little. "But I like your skirt and socks. Maybe next time you'll leave the mascara and watermelons where they belong."

"N-next time?" Niou manages to echo, dumbly, before he jumps with a hiss as though burned, because Yagyuu is inching his hands up and under the hem of his skirt, flat of his palm on the top of his thighs, dragging rough on sensitive and untouched, thumbs smoothing along the shivering insides, sending sparks of _so fucking good_  straight up to his cock.

Leaning in again, Yagyuu ghosts their lips together, making them catch and drag against his when he says, "Masaharu?"

"Yeah?" Niou whispers, tilting his head and pressing closer. Yagyuu's hands kneed the top of his thighs. If he swipes his thumbs up he'll brush his crotch. Niou shivers.

"I told you you could tell me, didn't I?" he shifts his thumbs, but just a little and so not enough.

"Uhm," Niou responds eloquently. It's hard to focus with Yagyuu almost touching him, actually having stuck his hands up his  _skirt_  and with nearly his thumbs on his cock, if only he'd move them a little.

"Why didn't you just say so?" Yagyuu presses. He inches up his thumbs again, so damn close that if Niou hollowed his back then surely,  _surely_ , they must touch his aching hard-on.

But he doesn't arch. He looks away from Yagyuu, dragging their lips in a thick clinging slide before they disconnect. He sees flashes of empty desks and a badly wiped blackboard. The sun is hanging low, fat and heavy and a deep, orange-red that bronzes their skin and makes everything hazy and mellow.

"It's fucking gay, Yagyuu," he mutters. "I didn't want you to hate me."

Yagyuu chuckles and it is low and dirty, but amused, too. "Is it, Niou-kun?" he asks, and moves his thumbs. "Fucking gay?"

The first swipe of those fingers up from his balls along the trapped length of his erection is almost enough to bring him off. Niou grunts and squeezes his eyes shut. Everything between his legs burns and tingles. He looks down and sees Yagyuu's tennis-strong forearms disappearing under his demure black skirt.

He knows he's panting: lips open and beyond turned on, but when Yagyuu nudges the side of his face like a nuzzle, he looks up. Yagyuu kisses him, dry and quick, but soft all the same and says, "I could never hate you."

Niou blinks.

Yagyuu kisses him again.

And finally Niou kisses back.

At first just noses rubbing and lips clinging moist, staring at each other, a challenge of  _who will move first_? And Niou, knowing that despite all the humiliation and crushed melons and ripped socks, that he  _has_  Yagyuu, even though Yagyuu -smug idiot- might think he has  _Niou_ , it is Niou who has  _him_. Which makes it all the more easier to grab Yagyuu's tie and wind it around his fist, reeling him in until their mouths are open and licking and sweet and so damn right that Niou hears himself whimper.

It goes fast.

Niou is pushing the curl of his tongue against Yagyuu's, who licks back, good and so turned on that Niou can feel him hard and throbbing against his right thigh where Yagyuu rubs himself.

And then.

Then. Yagyuu is half pulling his boxers down, until they make a frumpy roll of fabric right under Niou's knees and there's a hand touching him  _there_ , on his cock, rubbing the slickness between fingertips before slicking it down, good and wet to pull at him and somewhere during it all his shirt is being unbuttoned, also.

Niou barely remembers his mother's empty, sagging bra, until Yagyuu laughs against his mouth, lips smiling into their kiss. "Oh, Masaharu," he says and Niou finds he has to laugh, too.

Hand push into the white, demure shirt, pluck at the straps until they bunch with the rest of the sleeves on Niou's upper arms. The screaming band around his ribs slackens, slips down. Yagyuu kisses him, his mouth, with wet licks that end in tender kisses and then down with tongue and teeth on his neck, alternating between soft and hot and sharp and cold, and lower still, at Niou's chest.

It  _hurts_  when Yagyuu drags the flat of his tongue over his nipple, but is so damn good nevertheless that Niou bares his throat and groans, the sight of Yagyuu's brown hair plastered under his chin too much. Especially when his hand is still tugging at Niou, inching his shirt high at the continued friction.

 _Yagyuu_.

He gathers Yagyuu's head, pulling it away from his over-sensitized nipple, towards his mouth so they can kiss again. Between the fringe of his lashes he can see Yagyuu, closed eyes and brows drawn together as though in pain, glasses askew. Their lips touch and caress, and their tongues taste the dark heat of each others' mouths, wet and shivering drags of sensation against each other.

Somehow Yagyuu ends up between his thighs, his hand a claw on Niou's hip to inch him closer an the other still pulling at him, slow up and down, teasing the orgasm in him to a brink of almost-but-not-quite. Better still when Niou kicks off the boxers and winds his legs around Yagyuu, who groans, needy and raw.

It's almost painful, the drag of the fabric covered zipper canting into him, Yagyuu still in his once neatly ironed black slacks, pushing against Niou, who is bare under the skirt and whose chest is bare, too, bra hanging around his middle and shirt pulled down his arms.

He's wanted Yagyuu for so damn long -his mouth on his and the rock of his body into his- that Niou finds himself going rigid, spine shivering as Yagyuu pumps up against him, and then he comes. Hard and unexpected and somewhere in the inhuman cry that rises from his throat is  _Hiroshi_. The sunset flashes behind his eyelids, but what he sees is dark brown eyes boring into his.

Yagyuu is quieter and he doesn't say Niou's name.

But he hauls Niou closer, until they are connected from mouth to hips and hangs on to him like a drowning man, one sob of pleasure expelled into Niou's mouth. He holds him and kisses Yagyuu's fluttering eyelids, rubs his shaking back and watches as Yagyuu's eyes squeeze shut under the force of his orgasm.

Yagyuu's pants are ruined.

Stained with come from the outside and from the inside leaves them squishy and gross.

Niou's skirt is rumpled, but not much worse for the wear.

There's a lingering sense of aftershocks, especially when Yagyuu takes an unsteady step back as Niou's legs loosen their hold and slide down. They pant together, heated breath making damp clouds on one others' mouths.

Yagyuu looks at him. His smile is genuine and crooked, almost sheepish. There's a kiss and then Yagyuu says: "Your stomach trembles."

Niou smiles.

***

"Yo," Niou says. He sidles up to Yanagi and flicks his earlobe.

Yanagi turns and frowns at him.

The changing rooms reek. Stinky feet and sweaty crotches and Marui's horrid apple gum. It's a hot day.

Niou is snacking on a slice of watermelon (at least his left breast ended to serve the noble purpose of feeding a starving teenager), juice sluicing down his chin, while Yagyuu is pricking at his own, sliced into neat cubes.

Marui casts them hungry, salivating looks. They don't share.

"Data man," Niou says and flicks Yanagi's other ear.

"What?" Yanagi bites out.

Niou throws the piece of notebook paper at him. Stained with dirt and ink and fruit juice and  _other_  juice, it looks sad and half-dead. With a fumble, Yanagi snatches at it, casting Niou a weary sideways glance. Obviously fearing the paper's contents. He should.

Niou leers, plays with his rat-tail. Yagyuu makes content humming noises over his watermelon cubes, all the while swatting a nagging Kirihara aside like an obnoxious fly buzzing at his ear.

Still not sharing.

Yanagi looks at the paper. "It's algebra?" he ventures.

Niou rolls his eyes, slouches. "Yah, I  _know_  that. But what's the solution?'

It takes Yanagi barely a minute, his dark eyes flit along the original problem, then narrow as he calculates it. He doesn't need to write anything down.

"Y is Sixty-nine," he says and hands the paper back.

"Eh?" Niou grabs it, scans the numbers, takes notes if the parenthesis, the minuses, the plusses and the roots scattered throughout it.

Yukimura leans over his shoulder, peering, naked and ruffling his hair with a towel. "Sixty-nine," he confirms. He stops ruffling and gives Niou a flinty look. "Why?"

Niou scratches at his temple. His hair sticks up. "Huh," he goes.

It's true.

Now that both Yanagi and Yukimura have said it, he sees it, too. There's nothing wrong with the exercise. Nothing at all. The numbers seem jolly and happy, nearly handing the final remaining number of truth over on a silver platter, so simple is it.

y = 69

Sixty-friggin'-nine.

"Fuck," he hisses.

Yagyuu looks up from his watermelon cubes. The juice stains his lips red and dark, just like they looked when he was coming.

"Not quite," he says.

Niou looks at him, hitching his brows up.

Yagyuu hitches them right back,  _Niou_  written all over his face. "I said:  _not quite_."

He gets it. Lips curling, he says. "Yet."

Yagyuu nods. Politely. "Yet."

"We could make it so yet," Niou offers.

"We could," Yagyuu confirms and  _smirks_.

Kirihara scrambles back in alarm, falls of the bench with an oomph.

Marui scratches at his hair and pops a bubble. "What the hell are you two talking about?"

 

Niou looks at Yagyuu, who looks back.

They share a smile.

 

 _If only you knew, Bunta_ , he thinks,  _if only you knew_.

  
  
  
  


_-fin-_


End file.
